


The Wizard Who Came In From The Cold

by Dendritic_Trees



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dendritic_Trees/pseuds/Dendritic_Trees
Summary: Its 1995. Voldemort is marshalling his forces. The Order of the Phoenix is scrambling to move against him however they can.But while the Ministry of Magic is turning a blind eye, other interested parties are watching.





	1. Chapter 1

The morning after what had been the most baffling, and possibly the most stressful night of his life, the Prime Minister had an eight AM meeting.

It has been listed on his schedule along with the innumerable other briefings that came with being elected Prime Minister, and he hadn’t thought about it when he’d had it scheduled. But, after a night of tossing and turning, and listening to the the gerbil which had formerly been one of his favourite teacups, scratch around inside of the sock-drawer he’d put it in for the night, he really wished he’d opted for a slightly later start to his first day.

He staggered blearily into his office at three minutes to eight and begged his secretary for some very strong coffee only to have a member of the catering staff nod to him on the way out of his office.

“Mr. Jacobi already asked for it Prime Minister,” his secretary said primly.

“Oh, thank you Michelle,” he said, a little vaguely. The name didn’t sound even the slightest bit familiar.

Mr. Jacobi, walked in at eight o’clock exactly. He was smartly dressed, with glossy, curly, dark hair and a cupid’s bow mouth, and the Prime Minister was perfectly certain he’d never set eyes on him before.

“Congratulations Minister,” Mr. Jacobi said, holding out a hand, “Tommy Jacobi, from MI5. Call me Tommy. I’m here to brief you about the visitor you got last night I’m afraid. I’m terribly sorry about that, but our information on the Ministry of Magic isn’t good enough to say exactly when he’ll show up.”

The Prime Minister gaped.

“You, um, you, that is, we, know about - about, that,” he trailed off a little lamely.

“I lead the department which monitors Wizarding Britain,” Tommy said, “Also, I’m not so bad at magic myself.”

Then he pulled a magic wand, just like the one Fudge had used on his teacup, out of his sleeve and set it on the Minister’s desk.

Then Tommy helped himself to the coffee that had been left out on the side board, pulled a few neatly ordered files out of his briefcase and started to tell him about wizards. Tommy was a well organized speaker with a pleasant voice, and even though the more he learned about Wizards, the more he wished he could go back to not knowing anything at all, as Tommy talked he felt increasingly relieved that someone had the whole _situation_ in hand.

The Minister was also sneakingly relieved he hadn’t had to campaign against this man, he wasn’t sure he’d have won.

“I’ve got to ask,” said the Prime Minister, once Tommy had either handed over or tucked away the last of his documents, “how does a wizard, an actual _wizard_ end up working for MI5.”

“Intelligence is something of a family business on the non-magical side,” said Tommy lightly, then looked, very seriously, straight into his eyes, “and quite frankly Minister, if you had a choice between living in Great Britain, or in a perpetually unstable anocratic pseudo state, where you pick?”


	2. Chapter 2

INSOUCIANT ACKNOWLEDGE STOP PLAN AS DISCUSSED TO BE INITIATED TOMORROW DAWN STOP ACCELERATION RESULTING FROM CURRENT EVENTS CP THE TIMES JULY 13 AND 18 STOP RECOMMEND DENY ALL KNOWLEDGE TO ALL INTERESTED PARTIES DO NOT ENGAGE IF POSSIBLE STOP APOLOGIES FOR DISRUPTION STOP KOSCHEI

 

ACKNOWLEDGED STOP RECOMMENDATION ACCEPTED STOP ALL DENIALS ACCEPTED STOP APOLOGY ACCEPTED STOP INSOUCIANT


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I were better at this I would probably have figured out not to rehash quite so much of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix directly, but I am not, so here we are.

Harry stepped through the door of the suddenly appearing house. The interior was pitch black, but he could hear the others crowding in behind him. He felt something tap him sharply on the head and a rush of warmth running up the back of his neck, which must have been Moody removing the disillusionment charm.

“Everyone stay still and be quiet,” Moody said sharply.

Harry heard the clunk of his wooden leg as he moved, and a second later there was a hiss and gas lamps flickered to life along the walls. They were standing in the entryway of a Victorian looking house, with shabby looking green and black carpets and wallpaper. The gas lamp sconces and the chandelier hanging from the ceiling were all shaped like serpents.

Mrs. Weasley emerged from a door at the end of the corridor and rushed over to them, she enveloped Harry in a crushing hug.

“Oh you’re here, I’m so glad to see you, we’ve all been terribly worried about you” she said, pulling back and looking him over, “well, you look like you could do with a few good meals, but you’ll have to wait until after the meeting for dinner, I’m afraid. I’ll just see you upstairs.” She looked over his shoulder, “we’ve already started, you’d better go straight in.”

“Keep quiet in the hallway,” Mrs. Weasley whispered to him as she lead him down the hall and up the stairs. There was another serpent carved into the banister and there were a series of plaques mounted on the wall above the stairs. As Harry passed them he could see that they were the heads of House Elves.

“What is this place,” he whispered to Mrs. Weasley.

“Not now,” she said, “Ron and Hermione will explain. There, that door on the right. I’ll see you after the meeting is over.”

She turned around and rushed back down the stairs.

 

Harry pushed the door open and was immediately grabbed and hugged by Hermione.

“Harry!” Hermione gasped loudly, right in his ear, “we didn’t hear you arrive. How are you? Are you alright? Dumbledore made us swear we wouldn’t tell you anything but you must be furious. I would be furious. And this hearing its ridiculous, they can’t possibly expel you for this they just can’t, I looked it up.”

“Let him breathe Hermione,” said Ron, from behind her.

Hermione let him go and took a step back so Harry could get through the door. Hedwig flew down from the top of the wardrobe and landed on his shoulder with a thump. Harry reached up and stroked her feathers.

Despite having longed to see them all summer, Harry suddenly found himself feeling deeply and profoundly annoyed with the both of them.

“Are either of you going to actually tell me what is going on,” he said, “or what this place is.”

They both looked gratifyingly guilty.

“Well it’s the headquarter’s for the Order of the Phoenix-“ Hermione started.

“Yeah, what is that?” Harry cut in.

“- Which is the organization Dumbledore formed to fight You-Know-Who during the last war.” Hermione finished.

“And you’ve been here all summer?” Harry asked, “while I’ve been stuck in Privet Drive with the Dursleys, fishing papers out of bins!”

“Dumbledore seemed to think it was best,” Hermione said.

“HE THOUGHT IT WAS BEST,” Harry yelled, but Ron cut him off.

“We know, mate,” Ron said, “we told him, but he made us swear not to tell you anything and he wouldn’t tell us why. You’ll have to ask him yourself, mind you, good luck finding him he’s hardly been here.”

“Well I imagine he’s got a lot going on,” Hermione said, “what with everything.”

Harry would have asked what Hermione meant by ‘everything’, but there was loud bang and Fred and George appeared.

“Hello Harry,” they said in unison.

“The meeting’s started,” George said, “want to go down and see what they’re up to.”

What Harry actually wanted was a real answer to his questions, but Ron and Hermionescrambled up and followed Fred and George out the door.

Ginny met them in the hall.

“There’s no point,” Ginny said, “Mum’s onto us, she’s put an imperturbable charm on the door.”

“How do you know that?” Fred asked.

“Because I threw dungbombs at the door and they bounced off,” said Ginny, with an unspoken _obviously_ tacked on.

“And here I was thinking we’d finally get to hear what Snape’s been up to,” George complained, as they all filed back into Ron’s room.

“Who cares,” huffed Ron.

“Ron,” said Hermione, “he’s on our side.”

“Bill doesn’t like him either,” said Ginny.

“He’s a _spy_ ,” said Ron, “that doesn’t really count. I mean what kind of person would do that?”

“What’s wrong with being a spy?” Hermione asked, “I always thought it seemed like sort of an exciting job, actually. But my Dad says its only interesting in movies.”

“Job?” asked Ron, looking disconcerted, “its not a job, its just a really suspicious thing to do, you know, selling people out.”

“Do Wizards not have spies then?” Harry asked, “I mean, usually.”

“How can you just _have_ a spy?” Fred asked, “I mean, what would they do?”

“Spy is just a job in the Muggle world,” Hermione explained, “they’re sort of like a kind of Muggle auror.”

Fred and George looked down right alarmed to hear that. Ron looked like he was considering arguing. But Harry’s curiosity had won out over his urge to get in an argument, at least for the moment.

“I thought Bill worked in Egypt,” Harry asked.

“He did,” said Ron, “but he came back to work for the Order. So he’s got a desk job at Gringott’s now.”

“With Fleur Delacour,” Ginny giggled.

“Who else is in the Order,” Harry asked.

“Well Mom and Dad and Bill and Charlie - he’s still in Romania, Dumbledore wants him to reach out to foreign Wizards,” Ginny started, “and Remus and Sirius obviously, and everyone you just met.”

“Shouldn’t Percy be doing that?” Harry asked, “I mean, that’s basically his job already isn’t it?”

Everyone went dead silent for a moment.

“Don’t say that in front of Mum,” Ron warned.

“Why?” Harry asked.

“Well Percy got promoted a few months ago,” Ron started, “Junior Assistant to the Minister, in Fudge’s office.”

“And he was all excited about it,” Ginny added, “because we all sort of thought he’d get sacked after what happened with Mr. Crouch, we were just too nice to bring it up.”

“And Dad figures that Fudge only promoted him so he could keep an eye on our family, because he’s been after anyone who’s close to Dumbledore,” Ron continued, “well, Percy went completely ballistic and shouted all sorts of terrible things about how Dad’s an embarrassment, and how he’s been having to fight to get past his terrible reputation. And Dad shouted back - and he never shouts - and in the end he stormed out of the house and he hasn’t been back since. I think he’s living in London somewhere now.”

Harry had never liked Percy very much, but that seemed out of character for him and he had trouble imagining Mr. Weasley shouting at anyone. He was about to ask more questions, when there was a huge bang from the hallway below, and someone started screaming.

 

They all rushed downstairs to see what was wrong to find Tonks picking herself up off the floor while apologizing profusely as Mrs. Weasley attempted to wrestle a curtain back over the ugliest painting Harry had ever seen, of a woman who was screaming insults and swear-words at the top of her lungs. Before he could figure out exactly what was going on, Sirius and Remus came pounding up the stairs, each grabbed one of the curtains, and hauled them shut.

“Hello Harry,” Sirius said, turning to look at them, with a wry sort of half-smirk, “sorry about my mother.”

“Really Sirius,” Molly panted, “are you sure there isn’t some way of getting that blasted thing down?”

“I’ve been trying for a year,” said Sirius, “if you have any ideas, believe me, I’d be delighted to hear them.”

“Your mother?” Harry asked, “what?”

“This is my house,” Sirius said, “didn’t Ron and Hermione tell you? Mind you, you should have seen it a year ago. Anyway, meetings over, why don’t you come down to the kitchen and I’ll fill you in.”

 

They filed downstairs into the smokey kitchen. Bill and Mr. Weasley were leant over something that looked like a blueprint until Mrs. Weasley tsked loudly and they hastily tucked it away.

While Mrs. Weasley started bustling around the kitchen preparing dinner, Sirius led Harry over into a corner to sit down next to a large pile of rags.

“Hello Dung,” Sirius said loudly.

The pile of rags gave a tremendous snort and sat up into a dirty man with bags under his eyes.

“Harry, this is Mundungus Fletcher, Dung, don’t you have something you’d like to say to Harry?” Sirius asked.

“Oh, ‘er, ‘ello Harry,” Mundungus mumbled, “sorry about the other night, only I had a business opportunity, see,”

“Oh, its alright,” said Harry, “I don’t mind, if I hadn’t been attacked by Dementors I’d probably still be stuck in Privet Drive.”

Sirius laughed at that, but Molly looked up at him and shook her head.

“Really Sirius,” she muttered, “it is not funny.”

Harry thought they might have been planning to say more than that, but Fred and George chose that moment to move a flagon of butterbeer onto the table with their wands and accidentally toss it all over the floor, which distracted Molly before Harry could find out what they were arguing about.

Lupin came in and sat down next to Sirius while Molly was dishing up stew. He’d looked tired when he’d come to pick Harry up, but now that they were up close and Harry wasn’t as preoccupied with other things he looked exhausted.

“Still no luck with Fenrir Greyback then Remus,” Bill asked, once they’d started eating.

“None at all,” Remus replied, “its like they’ve all vanished off the face of the earth.”

“Hang on,” said Harry, “who is that.”

“It’s Order business-“ Molly started, but Remus answered over her.

“He’s a werewolf. A particularly nasty one. Dumbledore has me keeping an eye on him, for obvious reasons, not that I’m doing a very good job right now.”

“But I’ve heard that name on the Muggle news,” said Harry, “he got, arrested for something, I can’t remember exactly.”

Remus suddenly looked wide awake.

“Harry, are you completely sure?” He asked, very seriously.

“Yeah,” said Harry, “I mean, its not like its a common name is it, Fenrir Greyback. It was on the news a few weeks ago. He got arrested for something. I definitely remember whatever it was he got arrested, because I was trying to find out what Voldemort was doing and I figured they wouldn’t have caught him if he had to do with Wizards.”

“That would have been my assumption,” said Lupin, “but apparently not.”

Then he stood up and turned to Mad-Eye, “is it too late to get ahold of the Headmaster?” he asked, “he should know about this immediately.”

“I’ll go,” said Moody, and limped off.

“We should probably try to get ahold of Severus,” Remus added.

“Or, you know, we could not have him in the house more than necessary,” Sirius suggested.

“I think we’d better have pudding later,” Molly said, “Ron, Hermione, why don’t you show Harry the rest of the house?”

Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Fred and George all found themselves hustled out of the kitchen.

“Come in here,” George suggested, and lead them into a drawing room just off the landing, “they never think to look in here when they come in.”

They all settled down on the ornate couches in the darkened room and tried to keep quiet. After a few minutes, Moody stumped back in, followed just after by Kingsley Shacklebolt and then Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, who came in together. Sirius must have lost his argument about Snape, because he sidled in just after and headed straight through the hall without taking off his cloak.

“Well that was a bit of a waste,” said Fred, once he’d passed, “usually they at least say something.”

Harry had been cheered up by getting to talk to his friends, and to Sirius again, but being left out of a conversation about something _he’d_ found out, after being cut off from everyone all summer, was wearing away his good mood terribly quickly.

“Who is this Fenrir Greyback person?” He asked, “and what does he have to do with Professor Lupin, or is it a secret?”

He didn’t mean it to come out sounding bitter, but he couldn’t deny that it did.

“Oh, right,” said Ron, “I guess you wouldn’t know about that, living with Muggles and all.”

“Yes and,” said Harry, shortly. It was about the last thing he wanted to hear at that moment.

“Well, he’s a werewolf, obviously,” said Ron, “but not like Lupin, he’s really bad, he’s bitten tons of people, they say he likes it.”

“We don’t know exactly, because no one’s actually told us, but we’re pretty sure Dumbledore asked Professor Lupin to spy on the werewolves - that is, the ones that are working for You-Know-Who,” Hermione said.

“Which is most of them,” Ron added.

“Ron,” Hermione hissed, looking a little scandalized.

“He has a point,” Fred said, “anyway, he hasn’t been spying on anyone recently, because they all just disappeared a few days after the last full moon. At least as far as we’ve been able to piece together he just can’t figure out where they went. Snape’s been giving him a hard time about it. That doesn’t explain how he wound up on the Muggle news though.”

“Well couldn’t Fudge have told the Muggle Prime Minister about him?” Harry asked, “I mean, he warned him about Sirius.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” said George, “Fudge isn’t going to be telling the Muggle Prime Minister anything, I mean, you’ve seen what the Prophet is like right now.”

“Er-,” started Harry, “what do you mean?”

“You have been reading the _Daily Prophet_ haven’t you?” Hermione asked.

“Well, I read the headlines,” Harry admitted, “I figured anything about Voldemort would make the front page.”

Ron, Fred and George all flinched when he said ‘Voldemort’. He ignored them.

“Well, you saw what Fudge was like last summer,” said Hermione, “and he hasn’t improved. And he’s been really leaning on the _Prophet_ to stick with his version of events. And well - your name’s come up a few times.”

“More than a few,” Ron cut in.

“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Harry.

Everyone immediately shifted around guiltily.

“Well,” Hermione started, “don’t take this the wrong way, but Fudge has been trying to discredit Dumbledore however he can, and well, we know You-Know-Who is back because you saw him, and so well, they…”

“They what?” Harry snapped.

“Been making jokes mostly,” said Fred, after an excruciating pause.

“Its just the same stuff Skeeter said,” Ron explained, “you know, that you’re making it all up for attention.”

It was the absolute last straw.

“I AM NOT MAKING THINGS UP FOR ATTENTION!” Harry yelled.

“We know!” Hissed Hermione, “there’s no point in yelling at us about it.”

She had to raise her voice as she spoke, however, because Harry’s yelling had woken Mrs. Black’s portrait up.

They ran out to try and silence her, but there must have been some sort of spell on the curtains as well as the painting, because they seemed to actively resist being closed. With Harry, Ron and Hermione pulling on one curtain, and Fred and George pulling on the other they managed to heave them closed just as Sirius came pounding back up the stairs.

“I’m not going to ask what you were doing,” said Sirius, “but whatever it was, do it more quietly. I really don’t think not making noise on the main floor is too much to ask of you lot. And if you were planning on eavesdropping, I have no idea what yelling was going to accomplish.”

Ron and Hermione looked a little embarrassed at being found out, but Harry was more interested in watching the people now filing up the stairs. Moody, Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore all came up together, looking very grim, but not saying anything. Moody nodded to Sirius on the way out. Harry tried to catch the Headmaster’s eye, but Dumbledore seemed determined to look anywhere but at him.

“Anyway, we’re basically finished, you might as well come back downstairs and have pudding. Bloody waste of time that was…” Sirius muttered as he turned around and headed back downstairs.

Harry hadn’t seen Snape leave, but when they got back down the the kitchen it as just, Mundungus, Lupin, Tonks and the Weasleys waiting for them so he must have slunk out some other way.

“Who wants some pudding,” Molly asked them, a little too brightly, carrying an immense dish of crumble over to the table.

Even Harry let himself be distracted by several servings of crumble and custard, but once the dishes had been cleared away Sirius turned to him and said “so what do you want to know.”

“Sirius stop it,” Molly said immediately, “he’s not a member of the Order.”

“He has a right to be filled in,” said Sirius, “even Dumbledore agrees.”

“That doesn’t mean he can just ask whatever he likes,” said Molly, “honestly, if you’re going to be in charge of children, you need to develop a sense of discipline.”

Under any other circumstance, Harry would have been desperately interested to find out what that meant. As it was, it didn’t even rank in the top ten things he wanted to ask Sirius about.

“What are you doing about Fenrir Greyback?” Harry asked immediately, “did you find out what happened?”

“That’s Order business,” Molly started, glowering at Sirius.

“Molly, I think its best if we give Harry an appropriate amount of information now,” said Lupin, “rather than have him try to piece it together on his own later.”

Molly sighed enormously, but Lupin seemed to have convinced her, because she sat back down and didn’t protest.

“Well,” said Lupin, “I don’t know whether it will make you feel any better, but it turns out you had more useful information about him than I did. And I’ve been looking for him for nearly three solid weeks. You remembered right, he’s been arrested by the muggle police for - what was that word again Arthur?”

“Domestic terrorism,” said Arthur, “which sounds very serious, whatever it is.”

“Yes,” said Lupin, “fortunately, the Headmaster receives a copy of the Muggle newspaper and there was an article about it.”

“Then why did you not notice for three weeks?” Harry asked shortly.

“Because there’s been a lot going on and the Headmaster has had more important things than the Muggle news to deal with,” said Lupin calmly.

“So we thought,” Sirius cut in.

“But what are you _doing_ about it?” Harry pressed.

“We’re not doing anything,” said Sirius, “the whole discussion was awaste of time. Even if we knew where they’d put him, we can’t go picking a fight with the Muggle police. The best we can hope is that the Ministry finds out and goes and sorts it out. They’ll at least admit that Greyback is a criminal and Tonks and Kingsley both work in the Aurors, so they’re trying to to find some plausible excuse for finding that newspaper article.”

“Why do they need an excuse,” Harry asked, “why can’t they just say they got it from Dumbledore?”

“Because Fudge is convinced that Dumbledore is spying on him, and if we admitted to talking to him we’d lose our jobs,” said Tonks, “mind you we are spying on him, but we need the plausible deniability.”

“The positive aspect to all this, such as it is,” Lupin said, “is that we know to keep an eye on the Muggle headlines now, and whileall the most dangerous werewolves in Britain are locked up in Muggle Prison they aren’t going to be causing anyone any trouble, and as far as we know, Voldemort doesn’t know where they are.”

The rest of the conversation was no less frustrating. The Order, as far as Harry could tell, didn’t seem to be doing anything. Voldemort had returned, and instead of actually fighting him they all seemed to be interested in standing around, listening in on what the Death Eaters and the Ministry were doing.

“But can’t _you_ do something,” he asked Sirius, “I mean, you don’t work for the Ministry.”

“No actually as of about a month from now I’m going to be working at Hogwarts,” said Sirius.

Harry gaped. He could tell he was doing it, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

“I thought for sure Ron and Hermione would have told you this already,” Sirius said, “I’m your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

It took Harry a few seconds to wrap his head around that, in part because he couldn’t think about Hogwarts without also thinking about the fact that he might not be going back.

“That’s great,” he said, finally.

“Well Dumbledore needed a teacher,” said Sirius, “besides, with everything that’s going on I wanted to be around to keep an eye on you.”

But what he wasn’t? Harry couldn’t help but thinking. What if Sirius ended up away at Hogwarts while he, Harry, was stuck back in Privet Drive?

Molly seemed to take the gap in the conversation as an opportunity.

“Well, now that we’re all caught up,” she said, a little more forcefully than was necessary, “bed, the lot of you.”


End file.
